Intercultural Competence Media

Cultural influences on gender roles

How would your life be different if you woke up one day as the opposite gender? By discussing this question with his students, in this video, professor Kenneth J. Guest explains the cultural influences on gender identity. Humans are social animals and culture is the glue that holds groups of humans together. Therefore, identity is not determined by biology but informed by social and environmental influences. This video provides teachers and teacher educators a great example of how culture forms people's way of think.

Preserving endangered languages: Barry Mosses

In this video, Barry Mosses, as an Indian American, shared his family's story of experiencing assimilation in the US and losing his Spokane tribe's Salish language. Now, Barry is intent on capturing the previous generations' knowledge and keeping his connection to the past alive. Barry's speech brings us an insider view of analyzing endangered languages. While outsider views focus on the preservation of language and culture, from a local perspective, survival may be guaranteed by constant change through the acquisition of newness—through difference. Therefore, rather than assuming that we can and should save languages, perhaps we should take indigenous people’s perspectives and ask who benefits and who loses from understanding languages the way we do, what is at stake for whom, and how and why language serves as a terrain for competition. This video provides researchers an opportunity to rethink the perspective and framework that they use in their research.

What makes a good teacher great?

This TED speaker Azul Terronez has coached teachers and school leaders around the world in Spain, Chile, Canada, India, United States, and China and he is currently serving as a teacher coach at Shanghai American School. In the video, he reported his finding from 26000 responses regarding only one question --- What makes a good teacher great? Azul argued that a great teacher is someone who the student can relate to. Students don’t give you respect unless they see something in you that they relate with in some way. Therefore, teachers need to have a deep understanding of their students and provide authentic caring. This video could be useful for teachers and teacher educators to reconsider their teaching practice and promote student-centered learning.

An average day as a foreign English teacher in Shanghai

This video shows what life is like as a foreign English teacher in Shanghai, China. From work-commute to school lunch, Anthony Ward, an ordinary English teacher, presents various differences existed between Chinese culture and American culture. For teachers who plan to teach in China, this video could be used as pre-departure training material to help them get familiar with the teaching and living context.

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